May 22, 2017

Victims of antisemitism are always welcome in Israel. It’s where a Jew can proudly observe all religious requirements, rites and customs as an equal citizen and without discrimination.

Natan Sharansky came up with a simple test to expose legitimate criticism of Israel as being the same old Jew-hatred.

He called it the 3-D test.

This stood for Demonization, De-legitimisation and Double-Standards. If Israel was being demonized – like being compared to Nazis, if its fundamental right to exist was being de-legitimized – as a nation born in sin; and if it was being held out to a different standard to all other nations – like not being entitled to shoot back under fire from hundreds of missiles … well, that meant it was just the same old antisemitism.

I believe few people understand this better than Donald Trump – and not because of his Jewish family ties.

From the earliest days of his campaign Trump was demonized in all sorts of ways and this has continued to this day. He has also been delegitimized as not honestly elected or worthy of the office of president. And finally, perhaps more than anything else, he has constantly been held to a higher standard than the Obama-Clinton administration which obstructed justice, lied about paying ransom to Iran in pallets of used dollar bills and which sold America’s uranium production to the Russians under the most dubious circumstances.

These are just a few examples but leave me in no doubt that Trump knows what it’s truly like to be a Jew.